Assembling groups of objects
A significant manifesto in relation to the dynamic, fragmented world of consumerism, which drives the expansion of the urban environment, is the publication of the 'Futurist Synthetic Theatre' of 1915.  This article was produced by the Italian futurists, Marinetti, Emilio Settimelli and Bruno Corra. 
"It's stupid to want to explain with logical minuteness everything entirely, in all its causes and consequences, because reality throbs around us, bombards us with squalls of fragments of inter-connected events, mortised and tenoned together, confused, mixed up, chaotic.  E.g. it's stupid to act out a contest between two persons (the artist and viewer) always in an orderly, clear and logical way, since in daily life we nearly always encounter mere flashes of argument made momentary by our modern experience, in a tram, a cafe, a railway station, which remain cinematic in our minds like fragmentary dynamic symphonies of gestures, words, lights and sounds"
In 1919, the architect Gropius, founder of the Weimar Bauhouse school, spoke of staging creative work with an 'architectonic spirit', as an urban experience.  A Gothic cathedral was a symbol of the Bauhous' first proclamation, chosen because medieval cathedrals were the outcomes of the collaborative effort of a number of practitioners within a common architectural environment.
A later model of collaborative art work in the 1930s was the shopping arcade, the forerunner of today's retail mall.  Walter Benjamin noted the mythic, fairytale elements in the shopping arcades that had sprung up in Europe's major cities.  These had been spawned by the series of international fairs staged from 1851 onwards.  They have been described as 'wonderlands of consumerism'.
We therefore have two versions of spectacular art focused on the sculptural possibilities of space itself involving a convergence of the works of massed religion with the mass culture of comodity capitalism.  The common feature is a three dimensional assemby of objects which people can view from more than one angle.
These ideas are forerunners of the 'installation, a generic term covering a large area of 21st century practice and enquiry suggestive of the notion of 'exhibition'.  'display' or 'assemblage'.  Installation describes a kind of art-making which rejects concentration on one object in favour of a consideration of the relationships between a number of elements or the interaction between things and their contexts in a social space.  There is a growing sense that the viewer is important because an installation's meaning is actively produced in its reception as much as its production. This is inherent in the idea of psychogeography, the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment on the  emotions and behaviour of individuals passing through a number of different ambiences of an urban environment.  The experience of everything around about has an effect on the disinterested yet engaged observer.   An installation is the environment implying that the spectator should inhabit it as he or she inhabits the world.  This is an important feature of land art, a place out of doors where an installation is placed or where the landform is incorporated into the work of art.
The land artist Robert Smithson formulated the distinction between a Site, a particular place or location in the world at large and a Nonsite, a representation in the gallery of that place in the form of transported material, photographs, maps and related documentation.  Smithson's Site is a place not only of environmental, but also of historical and even archaeolgical interests.  As such is presents both the material world and its notional layer as a rich resource for inner perception and comprehension.